Study Covers Challenge of Recruitment

A study from Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Ltd.

outlines the difficulties that manufacturers have in hiring new employees.

The London audit, consulting, tax, and advisory firm released the study in May in conjunction with The Manufacturing Institute in Washington, D.C. It was their fifth manufacturing talent study in over a decade.

The study includes two separate online surveys, conducted between December 2020 and February of this year, of more than 800 U.S. manufacturers and interviews with executives from manufacturing organizations of all sizes and across all sectors, Deloitte said.

“Throughout the executive interviews conducted during this year’s study, a resounding distress signal kept repeating itself: ‘We can’t find the people to do the work,’ the study said. “This sentiment is backed up with data: 77 percent of surveyed manufacturers anticipate there will be ongoing difficulties in attracting and retaining workers in 2021 and beyond.” Matt Stearn, president of Innovative Cosmetic Labs in Chatsworth, said in a recent interview that has been his experience as well.

“The one thing I am looking at right now is there is a lack of talent across the board,” Stearn said.

He wanted to know how he could let young people know about the jobs not only at his manufacturing plant but at others in the beauty products industry found in the greater Los Angeles market.

“I would love the San Fernando Valley to be known as the Cosmetics Valley of the United States or essentially California because it is such a big industry,” Stearn said.In 2018, beauty products company Coty Inc. opened the new headquarters for its salon and professional division in Calabasas. The space consolidated operations from North Hollywood and Woodland Hills.

While not in the Valley, L’Oreal Group announced in April the opening of the second headquarters for L’Oréal USA, its largest subsidiary, in El Segundo for early next year. It will consolidate its three Los Angeles area brands, including hair color brand Pulp Riot in Encino.  In addition to Innovative Cosmetic Labs, the Valley is home to hair and skin care provider DD Chemco Inc. in Chatsworth, Puretek Corp. in Panorama City and RDL Cosmetics in North Hollywood. Additionally, KKW Beauty, owned by media personality Kim Kardashian West, and Kylie Cosmetics LLC, started by West’s step-sister Kylie Jenner and owned by Coty, are both headquartered in Oxnard.

Los Angeles is now displacing New York as the center of the beauty industry, Stearn said, and he wants to get the word out.  And not just to chemists but to others who can contribute to the industry in production, warehousing and marketing, he added.“How can we make it so that everybody in the Valley knows that we are the home to all the cosmetics and beauty products?” Stearn asked. “How would you find out about it? It is just a bunch of buildings in Chatsworth but at the same time I feel there are quite a few young people out there who knew this was in their backyard they may take a bit more interest in pursuing it.”